by Adam Melrose
Bella was a bit more confident now and looked around the room. What she saw was various expressions of surprise and perhaps confusion.
‘Hi Bella, I’m Norton.’ The man identifying himself on the left hand far side of the table had short blond cropped hair and brown eyes and was dressed in the same style of blue shirt as the others. Bella thought he had a very safe looking face.
‘When you say your husband’s tattoos were missing, do you mean they had been removed? As in someone had removed them with a laser, so there was still some ghosting?’
Bella could feel all eyes in the room settling on her. She had to take a moment to remind herself these people were friends considering if they could help her, and not a pack of wild animals circling their prey.
‘No, I mean they had completely gone; no trace whatsoever.’
Norton continued, ‘You’re saying they were totally gone; as in the skin had been cut out or sanded down?’
Bella’s face instantly went a couple of shades whiter at even the slightest thought of such an occurrence.
‘No, I mean it was as if they had never been there in the first place.’
The room fell into silence. Bella looked at the people seated around the table. There were various looks of confusion and brains processing information.
Norton spoke again.
‘So, just to be one hundred percent clear, his arms were fine apart from the damage from being in the water for so long, and otherwise they were unmarked and all was good? It just appeared as if he never had any tattoos in the first place, have I got that right?’
Bella felt all eyes on her yet again, ‘Yes, that’s correct.’
Norton raised his eyebrows.
Bruno chipped in, ‘So, how do you explain it?’
Bella’s answer was pretty short.
‘I don’t… I mean I can’t. I literally have no idea. The official investigation did look in to it when I made such a fuss, but could find no evidence of any tattoos ever being there so they just put it down as unexplained. There was no trace of them ever having been there so despite what I was saying, they just took it that they never had been present. As they didn’t find any connection between the missing tattoos and the cause of Pete’s death it was barely referenced. It didn’t help that I couldn’t find any photos of him showing his bare arms and his tattoos.’
Norton raised himself up in his chair a little, ‘Moving on if we can Bella; have you or Pete ever been out to the area where his body was found? I mean ever?’
‘No never, neither of us knew that part of the world, we were both London born and bred. We didn’t make it out to the countryside very often, and if we did it was never that far from the city. I love it here and Pete had been abroad so much with work over the years that he liked to spend any time he had here rather than go off travelling again. To this day I have never been to the Cotswolds. I wanted to in the hope of finding some peace, but I just couldn’t face it.’
Norton nodded, ‘So you haven’t been out to where he, well… where his body was discovered?’
Bella looked at him, her eyes moistening a little and a micro quiver began appearing on her lip. Her face turned a little red, ‘No… no, I wanted to, but as I say I just couldn’t bring myself to visit the location of his death. I got as far as Paddington train station a couple of times, but when it came to it, I just couldn’t bring myself to board the train. I began to feel sick, so I took that as a sign not to. I turned round and came straight home.’
Norton took a moment to contemplate Bella’s answer; nodded to her, and then scribbled something on the screen of his tablet.
Silence began to fill the room once more until Matt spoke again.
‘Bella, would you mind giving us a moment. If you are happy to wait out in the main office, we won’t keep you more than a couple of minutes.’
‘Of course.’
Bella left the room and closed the door behind her. Matt swung round on his chair to face everyone still sat around the table. He was about to speak when Bella poked her head around the door.
‘I would just like to add that Dr Edward Brett the pathologist has been really helpful through these last few months and has said I can pass his contact details to you. They are in the file I have given you. He said he would do whatever he could to help… Did I tell you that already? I can’t remember.’ Bella then proceeded to ramble on about how Pete could not swim, so would never have been near the edge of the quarry where he was found. She had blurted this all out in an instant, and before anyone had time to say anything she promptly left the room again, closing the door behind her. Through the glass everyone could see her take a seat at one of the empty desks. She looked exhausted.
Matt spoke first, ‘Right – so I’m guessing we are all prepared to at least go and visit the site where they found Pete’s body and have a nose around. We have nothing else on the books at the moment and I’m guessing we are all happy to do this for Max if not for Bella. It’s clear she needs some closure to this, and we can give her that if nothing else. Let’s give it one night and two days, and if as I suspect we find nothing; then Max can gently break the news to Bella and hopefully she will be able to find some closure and we will rip up her invoice for any work done. Agreed?’
The only person to speak up was Norton.
‘I don’t agree… no. I’m sorry Max, don’t get me wrong, I am happy to go for a poke about, but she is clearly lying to us. I’m not sure she is going to find any closure because there is no way that’s the full story. I just want to register that now before we embark on this escapade.’
Max looked down at the table. His twin Joe and Matt both threw Norton an angry look. Joe began to speak, but was silenced by Matt raising his hand in Joe’s direction. He then turned to stare directly at Norton.
‘A word Norton… now.’
Matt got up and walked out of the room and Norton followed. As Matt passed Bella he gave her a confident smile.
‘We will be with you in two moments OK?’
Bella nodded. Matt wandered over to the far end of the room and round the corner to the small kitchen. Once Norton had caught up, he waved him inside, walked in and closed the door.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘Since when are we not allowed to give our considered opinion when looking at taking on a case?’
‘Since the client is sitting on the other side of the glass and you know she can hear every word spoken in a normal voice, and unlike me, you spoke in a normal voice.’
‘Sorry, yes I should have thought of that, but… I think we are being played and it annoys me.’
‘Did you misunderstand what is going on here? There is no case; we are trying to help out Max, who is in turn trying to help his ex find some closure. She’s clearly confused and exhausted. Her initial call to Max said the tattoos were the main clue, now she is saying its Pete’s phone calls to his work colleagues. She just needs some support and direction. This is an exercise in friendship, not a real case. You get that, yes?’
‘I do boss, sorry.’
‘Good, well let’s say no more about it, get back in there, and support them both and do the decent thing. If there was something to this tattoo business, the police would not have ignored it. It’s clearly an accidental death, so let’s help her find some closure.’
‘Sorry.’
With the conversation being over, Matt and Norton returned to the meeting room. Matt then explained to Max all was good, and everyone was in agreement.
Max smiled, stood up and opened the door, inviting Bella to come back into the room. Her face looked frozen in terror as if the next few words spoken to her would shape the rest of her life.
‘OK Bella,’ said Matt, ‘Thanks for waiting; we won’t keep you in suspense. We will look into your case. That said, I just need to make the following statement to you, not because I don’t think you understand the situation, but for my own peace of mind. Then I know that we have played it straight from the start in terms of
realistic expectations for this case. I don’t want to feel in any way that we have misled you about the chances of getting anywhere with this investigation.’
Bella instinctively sat down in the chair closest to her. Matt waited for her to settle before continuing, ‘The chance of us finding anything new is incredibly slim. Given how long ago this happened, how long your husband’s body was in the water before it was discovered and the fact that the police have carried out a thorough investigation, and that there has been an official inquest means there is only the remotest chance of us turning up anything new or helpful.’
Matt paused again for a moment before continuing, ‘Add to all that, if your husband was killed deliberately or accidently by someone in passing rather than someone he knew, then there will be an even smaller chance of any success, because any thin pieces of evidence that connected the two will most likely be long gone.’
Matt counted to six slowly in his head to give Bella time to process what he had just said.
‘Before you spend any of your money, and potentially get your hopes up, I need you to be aware of all of that. I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t clarify this with you.’
It was Bella’s turn to pause for a moment. She wanted to be equally clear in her response. She needed Matt and his team to be one hundred percent committed to this project with no concerns. How best to phrase this, she thought.
‘Matt,’ Bella sat forward in her chair and established clear and focused eye contact with him, ‘I do appreciate all that you have just said and why you feel the need to explain it. I really do; but… I need to be one hundred percent sure I have tried every single avenue open to me in order to find out what happened to my husband. I won’t be able to get on with my life if I have any doubts. That’s why I am willing to try this despite the low chance of finding anything new. Not only is this about genuinely finding out what happened to him, but it’s also a form of closure for me, even in the event we find nothing.’
Bella lent forward, grabbed her glass and took a drink of water. She still felt she needed to show calm composure to gain their full trust. The more she could show a strong element of calm, the more they would trust her.
‘I do get this is not even a cold case, it’s a closed case. That said however; I think despite everything, there is a small chance there might be something that everyone has overlooked, and I need to be sure. Until the odds counter is down to zero percent I want to continue. I accept it is probably only at one percent now, but that leaves me with a chance, and that last little chance is what I want to explore.’
Matt also waited for a moment. He stood up and began to smile. As he rose to his full height he stretched out his hand in Bella’s direction.
‘In that case Mrs Stone, we look forward to working for you.’
Now it was Bella’s turn to smile. She positively beamed.
‘Thank you. I just can’t believe there isn’t a single thread hanging out there for us to find; and that when we pull on it, the curtain that I personally think is shielding the truth should start to unravel.’
Matt smiled back. He didn’t need to say anything. He just hoped there wasn’t too much more disappointment lying in Bella’s future. It was clear she had had quite enough of that.
‘So, Max, are you happy to give Bella the relevant paperwork to sign, and then show her out?’ And everyone, we all leave from outside here tomorrow morning at 0900 hours. That gives us a chance to miss the worst of the rush hour traffic, especially as we will be heading out of London. I’ll arrange parking for both cars in front of the building for tomorrow morning.’
Various forms of yes were given from everyone. They all began to get up. Max was the first out of the room and walked towards his desk with Bella.
Max and Bella reached his desk as everyone else spilled out of the conference room to their various desks. A day’s worth of admin would need to be done so that they were free to concentrate on laying Bella’s mind to rest for once and for all.
Tomorrow, the Cotswolds.
Chapter 3
The entire team was in the office by seven-thirty. Matt buzzed Max’s phone extension.
‘Good morning boss.’
‘Morning.’
‘Was Bella OK yesterday when she left? Sorry I didn’t get a chance to ask you with all the paperwork I had to catch up on.’
‘Yes thanks, she’s very grateful that we’re going to take a look. She sees us as her last hope.’
Matt swung a little on his chair. ‘I had a feeling she was going to try and meet us up there; she isn’t is she?’
‘No, she wanted to come, but I explained we were better going alone and working from her notes. I think it took a lot of effort on her part not to push to come, but she’s going to wait at home until we get in touch.’
Matt began leaning in towards the phone, ‘Great, I have a couple of things to do, then I am good to go.’
‘Same.’
‘Oh and by the way, I have put all our diving gear in the cars and some radar equipment I borrowed from the lab; just in case we want to get into the water at the quarry.’
‘Good plan.’
As soon as he had replaced his handset Max shook his head, picked up the handset, dialled and Matt’s phone rang.
‘Sorry, I meant to ask; did you have a whole load of fliers done for the business?’
‘No I didn’t. We are just going on word of mouth like we agreed. Why?’
‘Bella said that’s how she knew I was doing this and how to find me.’ Max could see Matt frown a little.
‘That’s odd. Oh wait – no I did get a firm to draw up some flyers for approval to discuss with you guys; they said they had printed them up and sent them out by accident. I think Norton handled all that. I’ve forgotten exactly what happened, but they never charged us, so I just let the matter go. It was probably one of those.’
‘Cool, thought it would be something like that. Cheers.’
For the next couple of hours the team focused on getting various admin tasks out of the way. At 8:50 a.m. both cars were in the courtyard waiting for the team, fuelled and ready to go. Everyone grabbed their go bags and headed towards the elevators. A few moments later, all six members of the Scott and Munro team were assembled in the courtyard, standing around the vehicles. Both the dark grey Audi A6 Avant and the black Range Rover Vogue had their tailgates open; go bags and some other equipment were being packed securely.
Joe threw a small black rucksack towards Max shouting, ‘Heads up.’
Max swung round, stuck out a hand and caught it.
‘Is this one going in Bess or Dougal?’
‘Whichever mate, it is only spare towels.’
‘Bess or Dougal. Who are they? I thought there were only six of you?’
Max pivoted around to face the direction that the voice was coming from. Everyone else stopped what they were doing and looked.
Max’s voice broke the silence, ‘Err, morning Bella.’
Bella walked towards him, carrying a white cardboard box about the size of two shoe boxes.
‘I... I wasn’t sure what to bring you guys as a good luck charm, so I brought you these. It’s a box of assorted Krispy Kreme doughnuts.’
She handed the box to Max, who thanked her, and placed them on the back seat of the car nearest to him.
‘And here are the papers you asked me to sign for my officially engaging you etc.’
Max took the papers, zipped them up in a leather folder, and put it back in the car.
‘Thanks.’
Everyone else carried on with what they were doing while Max stopped to talk to Bella. She repeated her question sheepishly, as though she was not sure if she should be asking; but the drive to be involved in any way possible was too strong to resist.
‘So who are Bess and Dougal then?’
Anyone else and Max would probably have swerved the question but not Bella; it might make her feel involved which would be a good thing, ‘They’re over
there.’
Bella looked in the direction that Max was pointing, but all she could see were the cars and some other people passing by. No one was standing out per say. Bella gave a quizzical look.
Max pointed to the Range Rover that was sitting to their left, ‘This is Bess,’ he then pointed to the Audi on their right saying, ‘And this is Dougal.’
Bella beamed. Max had been right, that had brought a much needed smile to her face.
‘You are kidding right? You name your cars?’
‘No… I’m not kidding, I’m serious. You never know who’s listening in to any communications when you are out on an operation. You don’t want to say anything that identifies a vehicle that you intend to use in your escape. That’s why the cars have nondescript code names.
‘Ah I see; that makes a lot of sense.’ Bella then gave both cars a once over.
‘So I suppose these two aren’t standard?’ Bella looked at the number plates.
‘That Range Rover is a P38 model, a 2001 Vogue and that Audi is a 2007 model; that’s a fair age for vehicles in this line of work surely?
Max gave Bella a knowing smile, ‘ In answer to your first question, nothing major. Just maybe not quite as they left the factory.’
‘But why so old? The cars I mean; surely newer would be better?’
‘Both of those cars are pretty much as capable as the more modern versions, but being older they blend in easier to all surroundings. Their age stops people giving them a second look, which in turn gives us the added advantage of blending in. If we had brand new ones, they would stick out like a sore thumb in certain environments; it’s a deliberate strategy to have the older ones.’
Bella gave a thoughtful nod.
Max noticed both cars were now loaded up and ready to go.
‘Bella thanks for the doughnuts that is very thoughtful. We should probably get on our way.’ He began to turn towards the car.
